Thread: New convert to straight razors with a somewhat unique query

Hi Gents (and ladies?)

New guy here, been doing the ol' hack and slash with that cartridge barbage for the last ten years after aplying cold gel to my face with my fingers. Never again! Just when you think life ran out of little pleasures for you to explore it turns out the most dreaded part of the day can be an enjoyable one!

Before I get to my question to the experts, let me start out by thanking all those who contribute to these wonderfull forums! Such a vast array of knowledge and what seems like a friendly bunch of nutcases! Just my kind of place!

I also apologize for asking a question in my very first post!

In any case, I got a straight razor shave at a barber last month and loved the experience so much I decided to go at it at home. After some reading and research I decided to buy a couple of razors online and related items. Sure enough, picked up a Boker and a Dovo Ironwood from SRD as well as a strom, some creams, and other items. Not only was the buying experience a pleasure (fast and friendly) but the prices where great and the razors arrived in amazing shave ready condition! Followed the advice on shaving and stropping and although the shaves where very good I know I still need some work to get really good at shaving and stropping, and since I am not very good with my hands usually and preffer the work of a proffesional I will leave the honing to the masters.

Here is the thing though, I travel and live in Dubai and Riyadh, and there are no Honemeisters around, and I am sure no one as good as Lynn Abrams. So I will have to ship the razors all the way to the states, not a problem for me but I would like to maximize the intervals so I am getting a 7 day set and wondering what minimal equipment do I need to maintain them for the longest time? A year would be great!

My thinking is that if I get 7-9 razors (2 Dovos, a Boker, and a few TI) in shave ready condition and be vigilant about stropping I can get to a year easy. But what would eb the optimal stropping method? My strop has both a canvas and leather attachments, when to use which?

Lastely, although I do not want to get involved in pastes and a collection of stones, I am not completely opposed to buying one stone, a barbers hone for example, and using that every few months. Thing is I am not very good with my hands and do not want to damage the blade on my razors.

Looking forward to your insight guys!

Welcome to SRP, and grats on your fine razors. For a new guy you sure are digging in fast, but then it's hard to go wrong with "a few TI"
The leather on the strop is the finishing part. It is used daily, before and after shaving. The canvas is used when the edge starts to degrade a little. You can maintain an edge for a long time on these alone, when you know how to use them well. You do have several options, a pasted strop or a barber's hone, or even a finishing stone. The name of the game is to stretch the time the edge stays serviceable, and all alternatives would do that. Barber's hones were made to refresh an edge in a convenient and quick way, and I like them, and I am sure you could gain the skill to use a hone, should you decide to get one. I think they are all good alternatives to maintaining fine edges on your razors.
Best of luck.

That's a lot of razors. Get yourself a hone. A barber hone would be great. If you can type you can probably hone. If you can run a pencil over a book sitting on a table, without either end lifting off the book, you have the dexterity to learn to hone. The problem is you can't push down on the pencil to keep either end flat. You have to use arm/hand dexterity to move and flip the razor. Honing a shave ready razor is painfully easy. But you have to stick with high grit, don't drop down.

Welcome to SRP. In our stropping forum AFDavis has a very good video on stropping technique here . As was said in the post above, a barber hone is a handy tool to maintain your straight razor. Alternatively , since they are not always readily for sale, SRD has a modular paddle strop that is ideal for paste or diamond spray. I have really good results from Chromium Oxide, the green stuff. I don't like any paste of spray on my daily linen and leather strop so the addition of the modular paddle is good for bringing back an edge that needs a bit of TLC. Finally, here is a PDF on stropping and honing that comes out of the SRP Wiki Help Files. It has been very informative to me in both honing and stropping.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, I will lay low with my razors and strops for now, and maybe get a hone after I master the shave and strop. If I do get a stone, I assume I should go with a Naniwa 8000 grit to maintain, right?

Welcome.
You CAN get by... I only have 1 Dovo that I use every day. Originally honed by Lynn, stropped before each shave with a weekly touch up on a home made Chromium Oxide paddle and a monthly touch up with a barber's hone... going strong for almost a year.

If I could afford a 7 day set... I would buy it anyway, that is lot's of fun.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

here is a PDF on stropping and honing that comes out of the SRP Wiki Help Files. It has been very informative to me in both honing and stropping.

Never knew this was here. Has anyone translated the cursive? I printed it, and put it through the dark setting on a copier, but it's still hard to read.

Altair - you should be able to find a Swaty or similar barber's hone on eBay, or maybe even locally. It might be hard to find someone in the US willing to ship to Riyadh or Dubai, but maybe easier from the EU. A lot of the best finishing stones come from Germany and Belgium from what I understand. Also, I bet the classifieds here could be useful. It is a pretty tight knit and very helpful community around here.

I am sure there are barbers in the middle east still shaving with straights, so if you search around, you may have luck locally, too. I am pretty new to wet/straight shaving, but I do get to read a lot since I am in front of the computer all day As an aside, I met a Spanish national who lives in Dubai, and from his description, it sounds like you can get just about anything there although it might be rather expensive to have to import something. I'd love to visit some day, as the pictures I have seen are beautiful. I hope this has been helpful!